Excuse me

Excuse me

Excuse me sir

You have something in your teeth

That's my dinner

This is a terrible picture from our game camera. 

It's our neighbors spaniel fighting a coyote for some dead sheep.

Never mind that this is on our property and a couple kilometers from the Spaniels house.

Unfortunately in our neighborhood when you move to the country you get a pack 

of dogs and let them run a muck across the countryside.

Funny enough I talked to a guy today about a four year old guardian dog. He needs to 

get rid of her because she keeps killing his neighborhood dogs.

But if the dogs are harassing your sheep whats the big deal.

Guardian dog neck tie

I received many emails and comments about the neck ties the guard dogs were wearing. First of all I would like to say this is not my invention. I got the idea from Louise who put it on one of her dogs that was digging underneath the fences. Our place in mostly buffalo fenced so the holes are bigger and the dogs can get through pretty easy. So I email Louise for a solution when we needed to keep our dogs away from the neighbors dogs.

We made ours out of irrigation hose. But you could make it out of anything. Louise made hers out of wood.

It is screwed together and attached to their collars with plastic ties. 

It for some reason they get caught up somewhere the ties will break then they can get free. 

We are in with the sheep daily so the risk of us not seeing a dog caught up somewhere is low. 

It works like a dream. 

I am not sure if it would work for a dog who was going over fences as our fences are 6 feet high. But under or through it works great.

Wind and dog work

Those clouds over the mountains are the price we pay for 10C weather in January and very little snow. WIND

This morning I raced over to Naomi's house to work dogs before the wind picked up

The clouds are what we call wind clouds.

It was so nice this morning we didn't even need jackets.
Just had to take advantage because you never know when things will change.

Gus is turning into a driving machine. 

Still reminding Craig slower is better.
He has other ideas.

After 18 months on house arrest he wants to live every moment to its fullest.

Winter Jobs

Frankly I think winter is more work than summer. Plus you are wearing three extra layers of clothes to do all the chores. The sheep need feeding every other day. The rams have been out with the girls and are now back in the frat boy pen. This year we bred 130 ewes to start May 1st ish. Also had a ram escape while I was in Oregon and will be lambing out 20 ewes in mid February. 

 Today the guardian dogs were treated to a moose leg each. We have been having issues with stray dogs coming in and mauling our sheep in a certain pasture so in an effort to keep our dogs safe we have attached what we call neck ties to their collars so they will stay in the pen we put them in. 

As you can see Glitzy is growing like a weed. 

She is working out nicely so far. She even put the run on Kyle one night when he was checking sheep and he surprised her.

Gus is growing up

My friend Amanda put together a little video montage of Gus growing up so far.

Thanks Amanda

Lights, Camera, Action

Last week Isla got her turn in the spotlight so to speak. A local animal wrangler called me looking for border collies for a commercial shoot the next day. With a little rearranging of my busy Saturday schedule I was able to go and spend the whole day on the set working with the trainer and my dog. I should start off by saying I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. We had to be on set by 6:30. It was way out west in the hils.

The morning started with half the crew trucks getting stuck in the driveway.

I wasn't nervous until I saw how many people were there.

Most of the work was done in the house. Which was tiny and full of people and equipment. Isla just hit the ground running. Totally sucked up to the director which really helped. I thought she did really well considering she is not trained for this and has never been on a set before.

It was really hard to get any pictures. I didn't want to look like the crazy tourist lady on the film set.

The food was amazing. Every time we went into the craft service building there was something new to eat. 

Lunch was a full on turkey spread. Some of the best turkey I have ever had.

The scenery very was really pretty although it was bitterly cold all day. 

It took me all day to figure out what the commercial was for. Finally at the end of the day I figured it out. Electricity

It is for a local power company. Funny I thought it was for coffee. There was a lot of coffee drinking by the actors in the house all day. The day was long and tiring but really interesting. I have a new appreciation for people who do this for a living. It is hard work and not at all glamorous.